The struggle with friends

One of the benefits to this surgery is that its given me the chance to open up about my condition to people. Before hand, i hid it. I hid it for a whole year apart from telling a handful of my closest (female) friends.

School was the toughest. I would miss countless days and hundreds of lessons, and some boys would ask why, naturally. I'd just respond with 'I'm ill'. Eventually, this response wasn't good enough for some people and they'd try and pry more information out of me. I wouldn't budge.

I gained permission to leave lessons whenever i needed to without asking, and to park in a special car park close to the sixth form centre. Naturally, both of these raised questions which again i couldn't answer truthfully.

The worst part of all though-socialising. Parties were shocking. At most parties, there is one toilet that people use. The issues were these:

• if i had an urge, i couldn't hold it very long.
• i would go to the toilet 5 times in one party which looked fairly strange.
• i would spend a good 5 minutes in there each time.
• the volume of blood i would excrete didn't have the nicest smell.

I was never able to relax when in public for fear of having an accident! I didn't do sleepovers because at night time i always had to get up to go to the loo. The only time i wouldn't go to the loo was when i was with Zara, my current girlfriend. I was always distracted and relaxed with her so just never felt the urge.

Living with a bag means i never get an urge to use the loo. In some respect, i have gained a little bit of confidence.